The television broadcast news industry has evolved from communicating information with paper and teletype formats to computer based information transfer systems that transfer electronic documents. Currently, specialized computer systems assist in news production, promotion and distribution of electronic documents to allow newsroom personnel to perform their functions more efficiently. Also, these specialized computer systems can store a wide variety of news media such as text, still images, and broadcast motion video for distribution within the newsroom and for transmission to external destinations.
News story information is generally shared by a number of different users with different information requirements. Generally, journalists, producers, directors, and announcers share news story information. In addition, news story information is made available on a wide variety of distribution media, such as video, teleprompters, journalist edit stations, and the like. Thus, a computer system that stores news story information should be able to provide news story information to different information consumers. In addition, with the rise in distribution of news information over the Internet via the World Wide Web (WWW), a larger audience of consumers of news story information exists. A common format for news story information that meets the requirements of a wide variety of consumers would be beneficial.
The Standard Generalized Markup Language ("SGML") is used to represent a wide variety of document types such as books, electronic software documentation, and equipment specifications, among other applications. SGML is an international standard (ISO-8879) published in 1986 for the electronic publication of documents. SGML defines a markup language wherein content of a document is structured using markup, i.e., tags or codes encapsulating the content. The markup defines elements which form a logical, predictable structure. SGML defines a strict markup scheme with a syntax for defining document elements and an overall framework for marking up documents. A document type definition (DTD) of SGML establishes the structure of a markup document of a particular type, and provides a framework for the kinds of elements that constitute a document of that type. The markup of a document is interpreted as an ordered hierarchy of markup elements when, taken together, form a tree or similar hierarchial object. A markup element describes the function or meaning of the content which it includes.
In such a document, markup elements include tags and their content, such as text, graphics, still images or other media. An SGML document includes markup tags that may be described as start tags, end tags, or empty tags. A start tag begins a markup element. An end tag ends the corresponding markup element. These start tags and end tags define the element in SGML, such as a book, library, or body of a document. An empty tag is understood as being both a start tag and an end tag with no content between the start and end tags. Between a start tag and an end tag other start tags and corresponding end tags may be arranged in a hierarchial manner such that there are children elements and parent elements having a defined relationship to each other.
Also in SGML documents, there are elements that contain metadata, or information about the document. Metadata may describe document information such as location, name, and creation date of an electronic document that may accompany the document or may be embedded in the document itself. Metadata is typically used to catalogue electronic documents or otherwise identify information relative to an electronic document.
The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a particular document type that conforms to SGML by having a definitive DTD. HTML is widely used over the Internet for distributing information between servers and clients. Both SGML and HTML can be edited, viewed and verified according to their respective DTDs. By distributing HTML documents through networks such as the Internet, information providers can rapidly disseminate information to a large number of consumers.
HTML and SGML documents are generally viewed using a software program referred to in the art as a browser or viewer. A viewer program interprets a series of elements of a markup language document as viewer instructions. The elements contain text or images, and a number of formatting commands, when interpreted, change the appearance of text or images within the viewer program. Some viewer programs also provide the capability for editing a markup language document in an environment described in the art as a "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" (WYSIWYG) environment. In a WYSIWYG editing environment, markup language document element formatting commands, which are normally seen by a normal ASCII text editor, are interpreted in the same manner as in a viewer program.
HTML provides a limited subset of elements within its DTD. The HTML DTD defines a set of tags that support document structures such as lists and emphasis of document elements. The HTML DTD also provides a relatively presentation-oriented model for small documents with limited internal structure. Thus, HTML has fewer features than its more complex counterpart, SGML.
As discussed above, there are many consumers of news story information. Consumers include people with different roles in the news production environment and different equipment types such as teleprompters, viewers, video equipment, and editing terminals. News story documents should contain sufficient information to identify and represent content of a news story for all likely consumers. For example, it may be desired to provide story information from an editor to a teleprompter to display the story to an announcer.
Since a number of different information consumers exist with different information requirements, a news story document format that supports a wide variety of news story information in a structured manner would be desirable.
For example, when presenting news story information during a news story broadcast, there may be a particular timing relationship between news stories. The timing relationship of a story should be tracked to provide additional information to a director or producer during the news story broadcast.
In another example, elements within a news story may have an explicit timing relationship, such as a synchronization. For example, after a certain amount of story text is read, say for a lead-in to an interview, a video tape must be played directly after the text for the lead-in is read. The director of the news broadcast must perform the correct command that plays the video tape.
In summary, both SGML and HGML are inadequate for presenting news story information. SGML is too general in that there are insufficient constraints on the content of a document, while HTML is too limited in structure. In particular, existing markup languages do not provide sufficient constraints to sufficiently define timing information that may be used to properly sequence news story information, to define machine control commands that may be used to automate control functions, or to associate multiple elements within one or more documents for the purpose of synchronizing the elements.